It’s hard for me to believe that ISIS hasn’t reunited under the name ‘Sarin’. If you told me that Aaron Turner was fronting this project, I would believe you – Sarin’s vocals, vocal phrasing, guitar tones and riff style sound terrifyingly identical to Turner’s, the drummer’s style bears quite a lot in common with Aaron Harris, and the production is quite similar. Despite all of that, I would have some questions. Why did ISIS feel that they had reached a dead end and break up the band, only to start a new project that felt like they took two steps backwards in the same style? Thankfully, I don’t need to ask these questions, because no member of ISIS was a part of this record – but it does leave me wondering why a band would work so hard at sounding like another band.

The music of Sarin is enjoyable to listen to – it’s often pretty and powerful. The first and last tracks especially are quite emotional and moving. Some of the middle tracks tend to drag a bit due to excessively long diatonic sections which are too inoffensive to be pretty or hypnotic and too static to be interesting. Nonetheless, it’s clear that this band has put a ton of time into creating a convincing imitation of sounds they love – which isn’t to say that there’s nothing individual about Sarin’s sound. The presence of female vocals in the last two tracks is a novelty, and their approach to structure feels a bit more like fellow genre band Cult of Luna.

But as with any band which imitates the sound of another this strongly, the question lingers – why would I listen to this when I could just put on the ISIS records that I know and love? Unfortunately, this band fails to provide any answers to that question, especially since the music lacks the building tension of later ISIS. But there are some well-crafted and expressive songs here, and if you miss ISIS terribly and are in dire need of another record in that style (or if you love bands like Cult of Luna), then Sarin’s ‘Burial Dream’ may hit all the right spots.